The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1887-03-11
THE DAILY NEWS
sHAD in NEW YORK.

Facts, True and Alleged, About the Tooth
and Faverite Fish.
New York Herald
The shad season is upon us. Southern
shad are already here, and North River
sad will reach Fulton Market about the
Goth. Shad are swift travellers, but they
don't like the city. They are only six
hours coming down from Poughkeep-
sic, yet it takes them ten days to go
fron Fulton Market to some of the up
town restaurants. The difference be-
tween shad and oysters is marked. As
arule, the oyster carries his bones out
side of himself The shad's boneyard is
within. The oyster season begins with
an .R." The shad season begins with
forty cents on a large check. 1t is not
known who first discovered shad. In
his account of the great submarine vol
cano that threw up PROPOSES. crocodiles
and fossils, Strabo says nothing of shad.
Neither does Piiny the elder refer to the
annual ''catch" in his travels along the
Mediterranean. In Massachusetts, the
shad season comes i'm sweet apple bios
som time. But New York snow is a foot
deep when shad are served at the hotels
in Florida. A very curious thing about
shad is the fact that they never stay in
one river more than a year. AS soon as
the Matching Is over the parents put to
sea and turn up next spring in European
rivers. Another singular fact is that
shad soon lose their flavor if allowed to
remain in the water, as is also the case
If kept too long ON land. Shad are found
i'm the principal rivers from Florida to
Labrador. They are also found in the
Elbe, the RhOne and other classic
streams, but European speaking fish sell
dom reach our American markets
There are twenty species of the bird, but
only one species will be treated i'm this
sketch. Herring and Goldfish, so often
labeled ''shad'' in country towns, will
be criticised later.
Next to eating, mans greatest pleas
ure is in perusing shad in tabulated form.
The North River catch of single day
has reached AZ high as fifty-five thou
sand shad. The Hudson River season be
gins some time i'm the last of March and
ends in June. But shad from the South
begin coming as early as December,
while the Nova Scotia season ends late
in the summer. So the average New
Yorker is in danger of choking to death
during nine months of the year. Mayor
Hewitt will be pleased to learn that it Is
an old Knickerbocker custom handed
down from the Dutch to open the Hud-
son River shad season by sending the
first fish to the mayor without the bill.
Ii will take two shad to cover the Mayor
office this year if rheumatism continues
active. Colonel Fellows, who is very
fond of shad has gone South, where the
rivers are swarming with fish. Those
who are in the habit of paying forty
cents for a two finger strip of alleged
shad will he pleased to learn that Fish
Commissioner Blackboard put 1900, 900
young shad for seed into the Hudson at
Troy in 1885. a strict account is kept
of every shad caught in the United
States. The big catch in the Hudson in
1885 reached |, ia 900; Connecticut, $780,
900; Delaware. LAO, 400; Chesapeake,
I ,632, 800. making the grand shad total.
saying nothing of the extreme South
and North, reach the modest figures of
4, l45,29O. The increase from 1880 was
seven per cent. According to the young
man who looks after Fish Commissioner
Blackford's books, the hotels are the
largest consumers of shad. The private
family retail trade is also good. So far
observation goes, smoked herring will
never usurp the place in commerce SO
proudly filled by shad
Long and tedious experiments have
been made to discover some way of pro-
pigating boneless shad, but SO far there
II ~ been no success in that direction,
either by grating or bone transplanta-
ton. An ingenious Massachusetts man
once thought that he had solved the
problem. Several professors visited the
homeless Matching tank and We're con-
graduating the inventor when an old
Connecticut fisherman exclaimed, as he
gave the fish kick with his rubber
boots:-"It's only id eel; take it
away"
The art of transplanting the roe of
shad is widely practised. And now a
word as to prices. Delaware roe shad
come first in small lots, and sell for 81 30
each. North Carolina shad are very
sweet, and are now selling at from 81 to
SI.25 apiece. Thomas cat shad bring
only 40 cents each. Savannah buck
shad are 30 cents each. The season APP
pears favorable, and undertakers say
that the outlook for strangulation was
never better.
The Delaware Indians arasaid to have
been the first of the American savages to
discard shirts owing to the difficulty of
getting them off during the shad season.
Making Oil of Saasafras.